The mayor of Costa Mesa looked sheepish when he appeared before a cheering crowd of anti-illegal immigration activists in January.

The son of Egyptian and Swedish immigrants, Allan Mansoor was being named "an honorary Minuteman" by members of the citizen border patrol.

"You are a dream come true, mayor," said Minuteman Project cofounder Jim Gilchrist as he paid tribute.

"I was humbled by the honor," the mayor said later.

The event illustrated how Mansoor, once more concerned about his neighborhood's potholes, has morphed into a darling of border activists. Now he's best known for persuading the City Council to allow local police to enforce some immigration laws. To the mayor, the effort, approved in December, fits into his goal of reducing crime.

Immigrants' rights advocates are alarmed, but the mayor and his longtime supporters say he's doing nothing more than acting on campaign promises to fight crime, fix roads and reduce public funding of social service agencies.

"He is just doing what he said he would do in his campaign. It's just getting a lot of attention," said city resident and supporter Judi Berry.

Mansoor, 41, was elected to the City Council in 2002 and is up for reelection in November.

Immigration was not discussed as a campaign issue, but some residents were concerned that his proposals to upgrade the crowded Westside neighborhoods could affect — or even displace — many of the immigrants who live there.

Mansoor's actions in the last year have been more worrisome to his critics. They say the mayor is letting outsiders use Costa Mesa to stage their battle against illegal immigration.

"I don't like what he's trying to do, which is to run Latinos out of this city," said Geoff West, a retiree and Republican who runs a website called A Bubbling Cauldron that is often critical of city government.

Throughout 2005, West and others watched as the mayor took actions that directly affected the immigrant community. In March, Mansoor led the council effort to close the Costa Mesa Job Center, which helped immigrants find work but cost the city $100,000 annually. In June, he urged the council to disband the 18-year-old human relations committee, designed to address acts of discrimination. He argued the committee cost taxpayers $3,700 annually and promoted only liberal views.

Later in the year, he proposed allowing police to check a suspect's immigration status, an idea the Orange County sheriff began promoting the year before. The Costa Mesa proposal led to protests by immigrant advocates and the call for a boycott of city businesses.

The immigration crackdown, approved by a 3-2 council vote, was limited to checking the immigration status of felony suspects. Mansoor wanted something broader, but as he explained to Gilchrist, "It's what I am able to do right now."

The mayor and his supporters said the move would help control crime.

But critics said Mansoor was bowing to "requests that are not the majority of Costa Mesa residents as opposed to people from other places, even other states," said Ivan Calderon, a city restaurateur.

Calderon and others say the mayor is taking cues from conservatives such as H. Martin Millard, a real estate broker, longtime resident and prolific writer who regularly vilifies immigrants on numerous websites. Mansoor says he appreciated Millard's support when he ran for council. But Mansoor says he thinks for himself.

He says some of his immigration ideas were honed in his childhood. He thinks immigrants should come to the United States legally, learn English and assimilate. Many newer immigrants, he says, don't do that.

His father, from Egypt, and his mother, from Sweden, met at a Hilton hotel in Los Angeles, where she was a parking attendant and he ran an antiques store. The couple, both legal immigrants, had three sons.

The mayor said he learned the importance of speaking English when he was told about his grandmother, who urged her family to speak English at home rather than Swedish. He recalls being told that she would say, "We are in the United States now. We speak English."

Born in Redwood City, Mansoor moved to Costa Mesa in 1976 and graduated from Estancia High School. After working in construction and plumbing with an older brother in Virginia, he received an associate's degree at Coastline Community College and worked as a campus safety officer at another school. That is where he said he got the idea to become a sheriff's deputy.

He said he bought a two-bedroom house for $147,000 on the city's Westside 10 years ago because he couldn't afford much else. Last year, he sold the house and rented a place in the nearby Mesa Verde neighborhood.

During his years on the Westside, he was concerned that homes there were not appreciating at the rate they were in other parts of the city. The Westside streets and sidewalks were in disrepair, and aging buildings were unsightly, he said. As a homeowner, he wanted to make changes, he said.

The Westside home created "an ownership with the city. I wanted my part of town to look like the rest of the town," Mansoor said. Attending homeowner meetings, he met people who shared his concerns, particularly about a growing immigrant population that speaks mostly Spanish.

Those concerned about the immigrants became supporters who helped Mansoor forge what was widely considered an unusually strong grass-roots political campaign.

Their enthusiasm was buoyed by their long-held concerns that the Westside had long been neglected by the city.

Once elected, Mansoor expressed views similar to those of former council member Chris Steel, another conservative. But Steel never created a majority voting bloc as Mansoor has.

Council member Katrina Foley said the mayor should not have considered measures to crack down on illegal immigration because the border is a federal issue and the effort could damage the city's relations with its immigrant community.

"There was a time when all Allan Mansoor could talk about was repairing potholes. I wish we could go back to those days," Foley said.

The mayor isn't saying whether he'll seek higher office someday.

"My focus is on Costa Mesa," Mansoor said. "And continuing to do what I said I would do, which is to improve the quality of life for the residents."

Council Meeting Arrest Sparks Lawsuit

A foe of Costa Mesa's plan for immigration enforcement says he was silenced, held illegally.

By Jennifer Delson, Times Staff Writer
March 3, 2006

A Costa Mesa immigrants rights advocate filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Costa Mesa, its mayor and police chief Thursday, contending the city violated his 1st Amendment rights when he was ordered to stop speaking before the City Council in January and removed by police.

The activist, Benito Acosta, also alleges that after his remarks — about the city's plan to help enforce federal immigration law — city police beat him. Acosta, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union, is seeking $25,000 in damages.

"It appears, from the time when the city started to enter into these controversial topics, a certain voice is being suppressed while other voices can be heard," said Belinda Escobosa Helser, attorney for Acosta, who also goes by the name Coyotl Tezcalipoca.

"It's clear from Coyotl's case that he was not allowed to debate an issue that potentially has wide-reaching effects," Helser said.

The city was mostly mum in response. Mayor Allan Mansoor declined to comment "right now," as did police spokesman Sgt. Marty Carver. City Atty. Kimberly Hall Barlow said she couldn't comment on the suit because she hadn't seen it.

Acosta also asked in the lawsuit that the city be prohibited from enforcing part of its municipal code that gives the mayor wide discretion about who can speak at City Council meetings.

The lawsuit is the latest salvo in an ongoing controversy about the City Council's plan to allow city police to enforce some federal immigration laws.

Acosta, a 24-year-old student at Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, was speaking against the policy at a Jan. 3 City Council meeting.

Video footage of the meeting shows that Acosta criticized three council members who approved the use of police to check the immigration status of felony suspects. He accused them of trying to get rid of the city's Latino population:

"We know you want to change the demographics of Costa Mesa. We know your plot…. We will fight this to the end. If anyone agrees with me, stand up."

Mansoor cut him off before the three minutes that any speaker is allotted at council meetings and called a recess at 6:58 p.m. The council returned at 7:35 p.m.

During the recess, Acosta was arrested on suspicion of disturbing an assembly, interfering with a council meeting and resisting a police officer. The district attorney declined to prosecute.

The city attorney's office is considering filing misdemeanor charges of disrupting a municipal public assembly. Barlow said Thursday that her office's investigation was continuing.

Helser said the police beat Acosta and that he suffered bruises, a sprained neck and injuries to his back, arm and head.

According to the lawsuit, Mansoor allowed Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the Minuteman Project, a citizens' border patrol campaign, to speak for more than the allotted three minutes and allowed people in the audience to stand in support of Gilchrist's comments.

Costa Mesa's Border Heat Puts a Chill in Its Latinos

By Christopher Goffard, Times Staff Writer
February 25, 2006

In a Republican county known as a cradle of border enforcement zeal, Costa Mesa has long been celebrated — and maligned — as a city that offered immigrants a generous embrace.

Though perhaps best known for its shopping mecca, South Coast Plaza, the city of 110,000 also spawned a soup kitchen, a long-running charity with a free medical and dental clinic and a pioneering day-labor center.

But in its treatment of its Latino residents, currently a third of the population, the city's heart has always been riven, a fissure more evident now than ever.

Last year, the city shut down the dayworker center after 17 years. It abolished its human relations committee after 18 years. And as the city now moves to train local police in immigration enforcement — the nation's first municipality to do so — it has become a flashpoint in a national debate.

Outsiders have rushed in, hailing or condemning the city's efforts. There are demonstrations at City Hall, shouting matches, floods of e-mails, threats of a boycott. But nowhere is the turmoil felt more keenly than in the city's heavily Latino Westside.

"Everybody's afraid," said Sherry Chavez, 23, a day-care worker and mother of two, as she pushed her baby stroller toward her Shalimar Drive apartment. "They're scared to go out of their houses. I have family that don't have papers, and they're scared of taking their children to school."

Chavez grew up in the city's barrios and considered Costa Mesa a nice town, blessed by sunshine and ocean breezes. Since police blocked off her street with concrete pylons a few years back to stymie drug traffic, it has also felt like a safe place to raise children.

Now, she said, the city seems meaner, less like home. Mayor Allan Mansoor insists his immigration plan, if implemented, will target only serious criminals. But Chavez and many others are convinced that roundups of undocumented workers — and the potential harassment of Latinos in general — are imminent.

A few miles from Chavez's block, in a neighborhood of modest tract homes called College Park, another longtime resident worries the city he loves is slipping away.

Ken Rasmussen, 64, a retired restaurateur, moved to Costa Mesa in 1968 and had his two children attend the public schools. He wouldn't do it now; he thinks an unchecked influx of Latino immigrants has ruined the schools.

"All of a sudden, it isn't the same city," Rasmussen said. "I want my city back."

The hubbub mirrors much broader anxieties. Like California, Costa Mesa is an increasingly diverse and expensive place to live. Costa Mesa's Latino population has grown to about a third of the total, with blacks and Asians accounting for about 10%.

The city flourished after World War II, drawing troops from a military base in the city and workers from the Boeing plant in adjacent Huntington Beach and absorbing part of the white flight from Los Angeles.

Today, along with its high-end mall and its teeming Westside, the city features pockets of million-dollar homes, a symphony orchestra, a respected theater and a 3,000-seat Performing Arts Center.

"It's one of the most split-personality cities I've ever seen," said former Mayor Peter Buffa. "If you're south of the 405, it's a small-town community. If you're north of the 405, it's one of the most vibrant commercial areas in the country."

The city is wedged between two radically different cultures. To the north is predominantly Latino Santa Ana, with many low-income and crowded neighborhoods. "Guess what's coming south," said Rasmussen, worried his city increasingly resembles its northern neighbor. "Guess what's coming this way."

To Costa Mesa's south is wealthy, showy Newport Beach, with beachfront mansions and a harbor full of yachts. Costa Mesa's median home price in 2005 was more than $710,000, but in Newport Beach the median topped $1.5 million.

Costa Mesa means "coastal tableland," and the city seal features a sailboat on picturesque blue water. Yet although it is cooled by the ocean breeze, it has no coast, no docks. Those are in Newport Beach.

What Costa Mesa has are high-profile charities, such as Share Our Selves. All week long, immigrants stream in for medical care, clothes and bags of groceries — workers who clean the city's big houses, keep its yards hedged and oil the gears of its humming economy. They know the 36-year-old charity is a friendly place that won't ask about their citizenship.

The charity helped forge Costa Mesa's incongruous reputation as "a city with a heart" — to use the words of a former county supervisor — in a county that has been a caldron of border-enforcement sentiment. Orange County was the birthplace of Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative that sought to curb public services for illegal immigrants. And it is the home of Jim Gilchrist, cofounder of the Minuteman Project citizen patrol.

To some Costa Mesa residents, the immigrant-friendly facilities were a drain. "Costa Mesa has always been super socially liberal, always wanting to take care of anybody who comes down the street," said Roger Carlson, a retired sportswriter who lived in Costa Mesa for 40 years. "You feel sorry for them, but does one city have to take care of them?"

Latinos live throughout the city, and in some crowded Westside neighborhoods around the intersection of West 19th Street and Placentia Avenue, they are the vast majority. Mayor Mansoor said he does not know how many people are living in the city illegally, but he pointed to statistics showing that of Orange County Jail's average daily population of 6,000, about 10% are illegal immigrants.

For decades, Costa Mesa's treatment of its swelling immigrant population has ranged from warm receptiveness to icy suspicion.

In 1989, amid cries that Share Our Selves was a beacon for crime and illegal immigrants, the city evicted the charity from its original site in a residential neighborhood, and it reopened elsewhere.

The next year, the city had a headline-grabbing spat with Jack Kemp, then secretary of Housing and Urban Development. The City Council had decided to bar HUD grant money from agencies that assisted illegal immigrants, but Kemp called the policy "un-American" and issued an order against it.

Costa Mesa has never had a Latino council member. Council members are elected citywide, rather than by district, diluting Latino voting power. Just over 10% of its registered voters have Spanish surnames.

The city's treatment of immigrants is regularly determined by a single vote on a divided council. Last year, with a series of 3-2 votes, the council shut down the job center, which was intended to prevent loitering by day laborers; abolished the human relations committee, which was meant to quell prejudice; and endorsed the mayor's immigration plan.

The plan ostensibly will target only serious criminals for deportation and remains in the planning stages. But fear and confusion are pervasive in the city's barrios, and the conversation keeps turning to what is perceived as an ominous alliance between la policia and la migra, the Border Patrol.

"There's a lot of people thinking that on Jan. 1, police officers were allowed to arrest anyone who is walking, driving or riding a bike who looks Hispanic," said Paty Madueno, who manages apartments on the Westside.

At the Vista Center on 19th Street, which includes the El Metate market and a panaderia, or bakery, merchants say business has been suffering. "People are staying inside, in the house," said Nelson Lopez, 36, a Guatemalan immigrant who works the counter of the Dollar Mart.

Opponents say the plan threatens to erode the already tenuous bonds between the city's police and Latino residents, some of whom refuse to report crime for fear of harassment or deportation.

Costa Mesa Police Cpl. Doug Johnson, who patrolled the Westside for more than two years, said he found Latinos wary of his badge long before the mayor announced his plan.

"The majority of the people, unless you make contact, they turn away or look away," Johnson said. "People who got beat up on the streets or even robbed, they were hesitant [to call]. It would have to be someone who witnessed it who called it in."

At City Hall, immigrant-rights advocates are converging from across the Southland to denounce the immigration plan. And border-crackdown activists are coming to hail it, hoping it portends broader change.

"This will be the testing ground for the country," Gilchrist said before a recent council meeting.

Councilwoman Katrina Foley, who voted against the plan, said she thought outsiders had hijacked city politics. Foley said her constituents wondered why the city was taking on a federal issue. They are more concerned, she said, about getting lighted fields and breakfast eateries in their neighborhoods.

"People outside of Costa Mesa have taken over the discussion, so reasonable-minded residents have been taken out of the discussion," she said. "Unfortunately, our city has become the lightning rod for a political issue that is consuming all of our resources and time."

Border Battle Is New Turf for Costa Mesa Mayor

Council Meeting Arrest Sparks Lawsuit

Costa Mesa's Border Heat Puts a Chill in Its Latinos